30 Days of Night

A long day's journey into Alaskan night provides the evocative setting for this stylishly gory tale of modern vampires from Hard Candy director David Slade. In the remote town of Barrow, Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife and deputy sheriff Stella (Melissa George) lead a rag-tag group of locals through the titular days of darkness, attempting to outlive the feeding frenzy of a ravenous group of bloodsuckers. Much fast-paced full-blooded flesh-ripping ensues, with Danny Huston leading the godless, razor-toothed hoards as the town's population dwindles.

Adapted from Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith's graphic novel, this is a mixed bag of ghoulish delights. On the plus side, the action is meaty, with a few genuinely shocking moments. Indeed, the BBFC's initially lenient 15 cinema certificate has been upgraded to 18 on DVD although the feature itself remains unchanged.

There's no faulting Slade's bold visual panache, with cinematographer Jo Willems ably aiding his quest for provocative, arresting compositions. What's missing, however, is the stripped-down clarity that distinguished co-writer Brian Nelson's previous work on Hard Candy Here the writing seems blunted, possibly as a result of umpteen group script meetings and on-set rewrites.

The production is solidly documented in the dual-disc featurette extras which cover everything from the creation of an Alaskan town in sunny New Zealand to the special effects and stunts. Stars Hartnett and George join Sam Raimi's longstanding (and loquacious) production partner Rob Tapert on the film-makers' commentary track, but director Slade, from whom more behind-the-scenes insight would be welcome, is notably absent.